Beyond the dependencies of altmetrics: conceptualizing ‘heterogeneous couplings’ between social media and science

Rodrigo Costas, Sarah de Rijcke &

Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS-Leiden University)

26th September 2017

Toronto

@RodrigoCostas1

Noortje Marres

Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (University of Warwick)

Introduction

• Altmetrics/social media metrics: networked nature

• Less explored

• Examples include: – ‘Communities of attention’ (Haustein, Bowman & Costas, 2015)

– Follower/followee relations (Robinson-Garcia, van Leeuwen & Rafols, 2015)

– Co-readership (Kaker et al, 2015; Didegah & Thelwall, 2016)

– Readership coupling (Haunschild & Bornmann, 2015)

• A general conceptualization/modelling of network interactions still missing

• Systematic discussion!

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Let’s take a look in bibliometrics

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Bibliographic coupling Co-citation

Heterogeneous couplings

• Similar network relations for most social media metrics

• Diverse/heterogeneous nature of social media actors and events

• Heterogeneous couplings: co-occurrence of linkages based on social media environments with scholarly objects

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Example, Twitter Constitutive elements

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These elements can be combined, allowing different types of couplings

Twitter coupling

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Bibliographic coupling

Other couplings

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Co-Twitter-ation

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Co-citation

Other co-occurrence couplings

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Beyond dependencies: generalizing heterogeneous couplings

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Recorded social media activity related to a scholarly object

social media entity interacting with a scholarly object

Forms of interactions, usually through social media affordances

Generalization

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Practical examples – Tweeter coupling

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Co-tweeter-ation

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Questions? Suggestions?

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